Blue was the day

Bewilderment, planes, and a fine autumn dawn. Skeins and streams of mist lying in valleys, embayed by the shadowed scarp of the South Downs. The blue milk of the Channel. An odd rumple here and there of Abroad glimpsed through fog and low cloud, rearing up at last into proper blue alps and an ornamental glacier or two. A blue Med dotted with flocks of fair weather cumulus. The return to the realm of weather, bumping down a flight of airy steps.

The resort: like Ryde or Minehead on a blue out-of-season day, with added limestone and bastions.

The hotel: prosaic as any hotel might well be, except for the neolithic temple in the garden.

9th November – the photographs

Watch out: in this placid setting, a rogue wave knocked down two walkers on the breakwater and nearly washed them into the sea.

We soon became used to fortifications watching us from every hill top.

St Paul presides over his bay in many forms, these multilingual reliefs being one of the more interesting.

Arbitrary restoration became one of the discussion themes of the week, with varying proportions of concrete evident …